If you're a Bone fan, than no.

Graphics are inherent to "Video" games! So yes. I think the question is "Are Graphics the most important aspect of a game?" And my answer is no. Gameplay mechanics are!

I think you need both. New consoles and the way companies always try to impress us are usually expressed through graphics. Obviously, we can't experience how it feels to play through watching on youtube. We rely on seeing if paying another £400-500 on that new console is worth bothering.
At the end of the day a great gameplay is what we want most above graphics for sure, but i certainly wouldn't have bought a ps4 if they showed the graphics to be identical to the ps3. Especially if they told me that they would always stay the same.

I think the only time graphics wont be important anymore is when they reach a stage of how on earth can you improve on perfection.
And as i mentioned above when that happens, i dont know how they will be able to get the message across to upgrade anymore, looking at the same graphics as before.
Maybe new ideas? Vr? I really dont know from then on.

Graphics is important to the degree that it's nice to be able to look at what you're playing, and that it looks nice, however, the level we are at now with consoles...they all look amazing...it's no longer about relying on the hardware, and the hardware is no longer the restraint. Now the burden is TOTALLY on the game developer. They can make a game with "lower resolution" or "lower framerate" (by current gen standards) look amazing and stand among the best looking games....Ryse for example is considered the best looking game so far this gen, but it's not 1080p 60fps...but because Crytek did such an amazing job with textures and particle effects, etc...the game looks absolutely amazing...there were many times where I just stopped and stared at the screen in amazement. Yet if developers were to make a game with crappy effects and textures but made it 1080p 60 fps...it'd just be a shiny turd.

So to a degree, yes, it's important, but in current gen it's no longer a concern unless they start making games look like PS2 or Nintendo 64 again. This is why we are seeing the consoles try to span out more with network features and other innovative progressions....graphics are reaching the point where...yeah it CAN look better, but does it need to? Developers should spend more time making the game good, and less time worrying about if it LOOKS good (but if you can do both that's best). The numbers mean next to nothing anymore. In fact I have a rather unpopular opinion, but after seeing how great the new hardware upscalers are...I almost prefer they take games down to 720p use the upscaller...(which you can't really tell the difference anyway most of the time) and use that spared processing power to provide other game enhancements.

To a person with standards, yes they are important. I like my graphics AND gameplay to be the best of the best, so I play on PC.

I, for one, have always been about da' graphics and resolution, and when a new console comes out, it's the primary thing I look for! 47 yo gamer from odysee days in '77! neo-geo, 2600, and on and on..

No. Never were. If you cant play a game that has "bad" graphics you are a casual.

Its important but not essential. Great games don't need good graphics to be great.

Hell ya graphics and performance are important to all gamers. Why would you buy a new console if these factors weren't improved on. I would just keep playing the ps3 if graphics weren't important. People would stop upgrading their pcs if graphics weren't important. Why would you purchase a new console or upgrade yur pc if graphics and performance weren't being impoved on. This is just my opinion, but all the pc people are always upgrading their pcs to get better graphics. I hear about it everyday on here.

the author is either a xbot or he tried to be cool by asking this question.

THis is actually a silly question. Would ANY of you be willing to pay for a new console that does not improve in graphics at all? Me neither. That's just silly and will always be silly

Are graphics important....
Pick one...

Yes, if you're a 360 owner,for 3rd party games
Yes, if you're a PS3 owner, for 1st party titles
Yes, if you're a PS4 owner 1080p is teh minimumz
No, if you're an XB1 owner, they don't matter at all
PC owner says, HAH, anything less than 4k is for nubz

Art style that supports the game play will always beat graphical fidelity.

Game design and gameplay >>>>>> graphics all day every day. If graphics were most important people would be playing the same 5 games for ten years.

Of course they are important, if they were not then devs wouldn't bother their backsides trying to make a game look as good as they possibly could, they would reach a certain standard then focus the rest of the time optimizing everything else.

They are however far from the most important aspect.

Graphics are important when PS3 multiplatform games used to run 1-2 frames slower than XBOX360 versions, but not when PS4 games run at 1080p versus 720p on the XBone.

And what is really funny, I have seen loads of PS3/PS4/XBOX games being marked down severely for being weak graphically (with comments such as "the game looks like it's from 2007") but I have never seen a high profile Wii game being marked down despite being far weaker resolution and graphical effects.

They are important. They're not the end all be all, but sometimes, they can make the game even better. Art-style is just as important.
You can still get games with great graphics and sh*tty gameplay though.

graphics are so important to me a beautiful game is really like a candy to my eyes and its more important than anything else to me
its like when u like a movie so much and u have seen it for ten times but again u buy it in bluray just for higher visual quality and i love to play the games that i like with best quality.so if i like a game i wanna see it with best quality

Sorry but remembering old atari games, and how gaming has evolved since then. Yes fucking idiot they are, the only people that take the gameplay over graphics bullshit.

Are either retro drama queens or people trying to downplay graphics importance because of their systems weak hardware.

I would play warship gunner 2(ps2 game) for hrs upon hrs despite it looking like dogshit on my 1080p tv, i would have jumped at a hd release that would have looked decent(not great even).

I laugh at all the proud gameplay over graphics posters trying to show how much more of a true gamer they are over others.

Till graphics for all games match what skyrim does with it's realistic enb mods, yes graphics are that important(especially since graphics can greatly effect gameplay/immersion). Which is conveniently ignored by much of the gameplay is king crowd.

For about the next 10-20+ yrs for consoles, the answer is a default yes.

well to me graphics are very important, BUT some of my favorite games of all time were from 3 generations ago. I'm sure if I go pop some of those games in right now I would go man that is ugly. The thing is though, that is not going to change the fact that those are still some of my favorite games of all time. I just think it is sad where we are heading as gamers in this day in age. The first questions are not how does is the gameplay? What story are we telling? How dumb is the AI? Instead it's what is the resolution? If it's not 1080p then I don't want to play it. Here is some examples for you. I have had the time to play both next gen systems for an extended period of time and IMO Dead Rising 3 is some the most fun I've had so far on both systems. The thing is, it's probably one of the worst launch titles graphically out of both systems. Here is another example. I have BF4 for Xbone and my cousin has it for Ps4. He came over my house last week to check out the Titanfall Alpha, but we played a lil battlefield after that and not one time did he say man the ps4 version looks better. Me personally, I can tell that the ps4 version looks a lil better because I myself was looking for it, so I could tell. To the average person though, they are not. Everybody is such fanboys nowadays it just a sad sight to see. Being a graphics guy myself, I haven't see this many articles about graphics ever and it's starting to get really boring. Where were these articles when N64 and Xbox was mopping the floor up with PS1 and PS2. Nobody cared why? Because Sony had the better GAMES PERIOD. Whatever most of you guys can fight over some plastic, while I will enjoy ALL games, even the "last-gen" graphics of the Wii-U.

If it wasn't really that important we wouldn't have articles talking about Resolution-Gate or making graphics comparisons for multiplats now would we?

In short, Yes they are.

Honestly, it all depends on the gamer. Generally, console gamers don't care about the resolution as much as a PC game does.

For me personally, I prefer higher resolution games because I play on a 50" TV. Running a 720p game on anything higher than a 36" you're going to notice a huge difference.

Just my two cents.

It's important, but for me it's gameplay first, graphics second.

Graphics may not be everything, but ya, very important. Sure, I still go back and play old games and retro styled games. Loving Ys on Vita, and it looks like a PS2 JRPG, but it's graphics that push technology/new consoles. Really looking forward to the next few years.

A problem that I'm having with these new gen consoles giving superior graphics to the previous gen is that people seem to be completely oblivious to what developers have done to achieve something that is close or similar to current graphics in pc gaming.

The people who say "Oh look at my $400-$500 system! It costs half the price of a good pc but gets the same visual quality."

To that I say, to achieve that visual quality (that's not even better than pc) pretty much all the new games except for non gpu/cpu intensive game types like racing games (forza 5) you're dropping to locked frame rates of 30 (dead rising 3, RYSE, Assassin's Creed 4) which the majority of those don't even give you 30 like they say but more like 26 the majority of the time but can dip as low as 16 fps for more than just a few seconds...

This idea that it takes developers time to get "used" to the systems and optimizing it over the years is complete and utter bullshit, that's not how development works.

Now you'll argue back and say well look at last gens end titles like the last of us or GTA V...but once again people don't realise that early on in the 360/ps3 life cycle games were running at 60 not 30 fps (actually locked 60), all they're doing to get those superior graphics is sacrificing fps, not optimization.

It's scary that developers are willing to give you such shit performance just to give you some new shadowing or a barely noticeable light effect.

People were in uproar when they heard that the ps4 was and still is getting better resolutions than the xbox one but an even bigger game changer which may happen sooner than you think could be on the horizon (lara croft DE anyone?) when you start seeing different frame rates between cross platform titles on consoles.

if your buying an new console yeah graphics are importent

Helix will be expensive but it's still a day one for me.

Oh, my days...
So Nadella meets with the US president multiple times to ensure AI regulations are minimal if any at all, donates to the inauguration and ballroom, and his boy not only won't regulate AI as farmers lose land and billionaires/corporations buy up farmland to build data centers...but because he's insane and compromised, he starts a war on behalf of a rogue colonial zionist state and [further] destabilizes the Middle East, restricting component access and helium supply.

Now the head of Xbox is saying the hardware pricing "could impact" next generation hardware pricing? Asha,...your boss at a minimum played a direct role in this. What are we even talking about?

Yea because a $3 trillion company can’t absorb the majority of the cost to keep the product lower for consumers.

Expensive… oh no, here comes another flop.

Could? Strange how prices rise for virtually everything we buy, yet when things settle down, prices don't come down. This has been happening in the UK probably before I was born. With that, how much is a next gen console going to cost? Look at the price of the PlayStation 5 Pro, which has been a flop for Sony. On that note, we don't need the next consoles for another 5 years.

I guarantee if people just stopped buying this kinda stuff all together. This would all be sorted within 2 weeks and everything would be back to normal.

We seen the exact same thing through the COVID period. Companies just jumped on the bandwagon realising that they can get away with charging far more under false pretences and fear mongering.

Consumers now have this fear of "you know what, I only live once. I'm going to spend all this money I earned through my hard work" Or "I only live once I'm going to take a loan out and enjoy my time here".

Silicone Valley spends literally billions of dollars researching how much they can push society to the limits to increase spending. You can research it yourself. There's published written documentation about it. Have a look for yourself into their group research into subscription programs to see how evil they are and why it's such a giant focus of current civilization. Its the very essence of corporate capitalism.

Just delay all new consoles. I could easily go another 5 years with my base PS5.

could? it's already affecting current gen pricing.

It is greed. Apple are selling at the same price, while Microsoft Surface increases 500$ per unit. Karma will tell.